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Saturday, October 29, 2011

Sven vs. the Inquisition

Last night I battled Da Masta Cheef and his Inquisitional forces on the broken world of...Endlessbattleastan (just made that up, I have no idea what we're calling his warzone). After our Dark Heresy session was cancelled we decided to add another chapter in the ongoing friction between Wolflord Sven Axegrinder and the radical elements of the Inquisition. Seriously, there is a history here, and before I proceed with the battle synopsis (and explain the pic of the green Bloodletter above -don't they look like they're playing craps? LOL) I shall share that history with you...

Sven has been my Wolf Lord since at least as far back as the day the 3rd edition SW Codex was released, but he may have been around as far back as the last days of 2nd edition. The model I use is an old RT Terminator Captain (they're be an article/showcase on him eventually, fear not!). He's tangled with Warfrog's 'nids on countless occasions and stymied Da Cheef's forces for years. One day back in '09, we were supposed to get together for a mega-battle. Da Cheef and I were sending these in-character transmissions to each other to hype ourselves up. We were supposed to be playing against Warfrog's Eldar (Xenos scum!!!) but I had a scheduling conflict arise and couldn't come. With feelings of abandonment, Cheef's IG were forced to take on the Eldar (Xenos scum!!) on they're own. This led to more in-character transmissions which led to declarations of suspicion that the IG force were in fact infested with the taint of Chaos, however the Inquisition instead tried to accuse the SW force of heresy and treason by stating that the IG force did not actually appear on any formal Munitorium inventory rolls, and that the whole thing was a concoction invented to avoid combating the Eldar (Xenos scum!!!), here is that Inquisitional communique and the SW responce:

FAO: Wolfpriest Jorvik

TRANSMITTED: CLASSIFIED

RECEIVED: Colcha

DATE:4916998.M41

TELEPATHIC DUCT: Astropath-terminus: CLASSIFIED

AUTHOR: Inquisitor Kemp, Ordo Hereticus

CLEARANCE LEVEL: Magenta

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: It is not your right to question, only to obey.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

There is no Colonel by the name of 'Extra hands' Straken, nor a 728th Sabbat

Irregulars listed within the ranks of the Emperor's most glorious Imperial

Guard. Further inquiries as to the identies of those you have mentioned above

has garnered the attention of the Ordo Hereticus. As such I have taken command

of this investigation and am aboard my cruiser 'Interrogator' which is enroute

to rendevous with your strike cruiser for further investigation. You and your

crew will stand down and submit to MY authority upon my arrival, and will

cooperate fully with any 'cleansing' operations should they be necessary. The

thought of the Astartes being so easily misguided by, if not outright consorting

with the ruinous powers is one that shall be quashed with much haste & vigor!

The Emporer Protects.

Inquisitor Kemp

-Ordo Hereticus-

FROM JOEL

FAO: Inquisitor Kemp, Ordo Hereticus

TRANSMITTED: Colcha

RECEIVED: Scintilla

DATE:4918997.M41

TELEPATHIC DUCT: Astropath-terminus: Loki

AUTHOR: Wolfpriest Jorvik

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: Men can be replaced, data is precious.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Lord kemp, we are not surprised to once again bear witness to your witless

observations and shortsighted determinations with regards to imminent threats to

the Imperium we hold dear. Of course "There is no Colonel by the name of 'Extra

hands' Straken, nor a 728th Sabbat Irregulars listed within the ranks of the

Emperor's most glorious Imperial Guard." It's what they have come to call

themselves! Do you honestly think to believe that a group of traitors would

resubmit to the Departmento Munitorium a name change after they turn traitor?

No, why, in their current guise they can continue to seek requisitions and

supplies thus not only draining the Imperial Guard of resources, but by also

acting in a manner counter-productive to the aims and wishes of the

Administratum. Besides the obvious act of subterfuge, if such a group were

bold/stupid enough to attempt such a request, it would take decades for the

change to actually occur! We both know that the Administratum is not known for

expediency. For example, we're still waiting to hear back on our Request of

Censure against you for that decision you made six years ago to pull back the

Imperial Guard that we were sent to support against a combined Tau and Necro

assault. You stated on the Voxcast that the regional Governor's botanical

gardens were to be protected at all costs, leaving us to pursue the routing Tau

(we're still happy to have crushed the Necrons in the campaign). When advised

against this decision, you had the Guard fire upon our force. If the Tau were

not a bigger threat at the time, your bones would be lining our wolf kennels.

Back on the point, `Extra Hands' Straken, and his 728th Sabbat Irregulars,

regardless of whether or not you can produce a record of their existence, will

be pacified. We welcome you to join us –from a distance- in monitoring their

destruction, but if you intend or dare to assume that the sons of Russ will heel

to a paper-pushing simpleton, you better not show up with a pack of women this

time.

Chewing up Treachery,

-Jorvik.

Needless to say we met in glorious battle! The Space Wolves were victorious, but only technically. Many a wolf-brother died to the undignified and dishonorable chemtanks of the irregulars, but most humbly Sven Axegrinder fell to lasguns! Revealed in this battle was the Renegade Inquisitor, 'The Khornedog' whose treachery set up this ambush against Sven and his battle brothers. So like a dog chasing a car, Sven has been seeking out these rogue elements ever since, determined to extract retribution!

And tonight, it happened, sort of... it would appear the Inquisition really doesn't like when you attack one of theirs even if they are bit 'radical'. The Inquisition, led by this guy, Matt Fucking Ward, caught up to Sven's battlebarge Ragnar's Breath, and taking a prisoner (some Lonewolf who's name I can't recall) they proceeded to publicly torture and humiliate him in order to entice Sven into their trap. Of course it worked brilliantly.

It was a Capture and Control /Dawn of War scenario. The Lone Wolf being one object and the other a herectical piece of archeotech that had to be controled. It was sort of a rough start, with my notorious dice undermining me in random ways. Without going all full blown battle-report, I will sum up the highlights:

Sven lands in a drop pod with 3 Wolfguard and engages the enemy! Despite the hail of bullets and deathwind missiles, the enemy loses only 2 models! Eventually, Sven cuts these foes down, but not before losing the Drop Pod's DW missile to the autocannons of the inquisition Dreadnought.

The Longfangs are undermined by the rules of Dawn of War, and before they can even get into a good position have lost members of their unit. To make matters worse, when they finally get into a good position, the dice gods deny them their glory! They are eventually cut down by the concentrated fired of the Inquisition tanks.

This next batch of highlight all happened in the last turn of the game.

My old school Landspeeder Tornado ("The Flying Chair-lift of Death") hounded a chimera for the entire game. Neither vehicle could get the upperhand until, on like turn 4, I blew up the Chimera with the Tornado's multimelta. After surviving a stormbolter attack, the heavy flamer toasted the unit, but still, seemingly fearless and ever defiant, the storm-bolter weilding guardsman stood readying for the next round...

The pic at the top of this post shows my Wolf Guard and a squad of Grey Hunters eliminating the last of the Daeomonhosts (Cheef hates the official models, and, when I think about it, these -alternately colored Bloodletters- are probably a better idea anyway) to take the objective and free the Lone Wolf. (Who is within 3 inches on the otherside of the wall).

Matt Fucking Ward shows up and dives out of his Landraider Cruesader like some dreamy fan-boy action star and utterly destroys my Runepriest (through a window! LOL!)

Seeing the GK embodiment of everything wrong with the Grey Knights Codex standing before me (and hearing Cheef tell me everything that he can do and for how little points!) I knew that my guys, who had just bailed out of their Rhino to take possession of the STC tech objective, would not last long against that combat monster! Not to mention that the Rhino bearing Inquisitor Corteaz was bearing down on them super fast as well! So I whipped the Vindicator around, and stood there wondering what to shoot. MFW's Cruesader, even if I penetrated it I probably would do something lame like shoot off a gun or something, or worse scatter on to my tightly packed Grey Hunters in the crater...

The Grey Hunters opened on MFW, but only score a single wound. Then the Vindicator targeted him and scored a direct hit, send Matt Fucking Ward back to oblivion.

Sven Axegrinder and the final Wolfguard shoot their remaining shots at the Dreadnought that had been hasseling them the whole game, but they just can't take it out.

So, with a roll of the die, the game ended! And lucky it did too. I honestly did not know if my Grey Hunters at the crater could hold that objective. Yeah, MFW was dead, but Corteaz was about to hop out and bring some pain. Not to mention that pain-in-the-ass Landraider Cruesader was more than ready to cut them down as well. The dreadnought above was ignoring Sven and the WG, and had been picking off my GH at the Lonewolf objective for a few rounds now, and could, if so much as one more casualty had occurred, have forced a LD test that probably (as fickle as my dice roll) forced me to route off the objective or worse, actually kill them!

All in all, a fun game, although at the halfway point we were both annoyed by our dice not wanting to cooperate with us. But, I stuck to the mission objectives and managed to pull off a win.

Yeah, that objective on the other side would've been tough to take but that Dread of yours probably could've avoided Sven and the WG for long enough to autocannon my aquad to death. Fun game,and I look forward to another one. Warfrog and I have been wanting to game together for awhile now, so hopefully I'll have another story like this to post soon.

Tale of Painters

FTW

House of Paincakes

Bell of Lost Souls

Gamewire

About Me

I got into table-top wargaming hobby around the same time I got into RPGs. In fact, the game that has consumed my imagination the most, Warhammer 40,000, was trying to be both back then in '88. Even though the game quickly abandoned the RPG aspects, I've stuck with the hobby of miniature painting and buildling ever since, although my devotion wavers depending on what's going in the real world. I also do 2D art,but saddly my joe-job has evolved into a full-on career (in wireless cellphone repair) and my art pursuits have taken a backseat. I'm hoping this blog will ultimately show-case my 'return to form' so to speak. It's possible that if you've been involved in the 40k hobby as far back as the late '90s that you might've seen my work in Inquisitor Magazine.